Canada’s Day of Infamy: January 28^th 1988

I had only been in the pro-life movement for 3 years when the Supreme Court in Morgentaler struck down Canada’s abortion law. I received a phone call to let me know the decision and hearing it I sank to my knees, not because the Canadian abortion law was good, it was far from it – but that the Supreme Court had finally shrugged off Canada’s mantle of all pretense that pregnant women and their pre-born children were important to protect.

Our children growing in the womb were finally abandoned totally by the law and pregnant women thrown to the wolves of the abortion industry. I watched commentator after commentator and every kind of abortion advocate celebrate a ruling that took killing an unborn child out of the Criminal Code and placing it full square into the medical arena. What an arena it has been, since the slaughter that is abortion can easily be compared to the slaughter in the Colosseum – killing organized by the governing body at the urging and delight of many, while ridding society of the unwanted.

Over the years I have come to hold four of our society’s foundations, politics, medicine, church and the law, responsible for the abortion carnage we have seen from 1969-1988 and from 1988 to the present day. The official statistics for induced abortion in Canada tell us that since 1969  to 2019 (latest official statistics) our Canadian Governments and members of Parliament have presided over the killing of 4,335,065 Canadian children by abortion, and in most cases provincial insurance policies have covered the cost of this mass slaughter of the innocents – making us all part of this medical killing.

In those early years after the 1988 decision we had politicians who wished to put limits on abortion or draw up regulations for abortion, except for a few outstanding and courageous pro-life politicians demanding a legal end to the practice of abortion in Canada. In the 34 years since 1988 this has not changed much and we still see the same call for limits and regulations with few politicians daring to demand the legal fiction that a child is not a human being be struck from Canada’s Criminal Code even with overwhelming biological, embryological and scientific evidence that we are human from our biological beginnings until death. Sadly, it seems that calling for some babies to be protected, whether because of age or sex or because they are killed during an attack on their mother, is apparently the modern pro-life cry. Are pro-life folks really satisfied with that approach –  aren’t we called to protect every child, every human being, regardless of age, sex, health or disability?

It seems to me that it not the task of the pro-life movement to ask for limiting or regulation of abortion – it is for us to bear witness to the fact that every abortion kills a human child and that child is precious and should be protected by law. And abortion banned by law.

If we are politicians, we demand a law protecting every human life from its biological beginnings until death and the striking down of section 223 (1 and 2) of the Canadian Criminal Code.

If we are a physician or medical health professional, we decry the abortion positions and policies of our ruling medical bodies and endeavour to change them. We strive to alert mothers to the harm induced abortion may wreak on their mental, physical and psychological health and educate them regarding the beauty and wonder of the development of their little ones inside the womb. We direct them to life giving options for support and assistance.

If we are lawyers, we work to explain the wrongness of a law which makes licit the brutal destruction of an innocent human life and strive to develop ethical pro-life laws. Again, we decry the abortion policies of our governing bodies.

If we are church leaders or church attendees, we stand up for every single human life created in the image of God and we demand of our congregations and each other – our schools, teachers and parents. We find ways for our church family to reach out to those mothers who may, through no other reason than they have no help, believe abortion is the only choice they have!

As members of society, we make every effort at home, in our neighbourhoods at our workplace, in school or university to educate our peers and community on the real horror that abortion represents and the inherent harm that it may cause many women. We open pregnancy support services and speak about the beauty of releasing a child for adoption rather than killing a child by abortion. We join and support pro-life groups working to inform our society on life issues. We urge our government and politicians to protect human life in law, our doctors to tell the truth to women, our pregnant women to choose life with our help. We write letters to our local newspaper or engage in online debates to defend the child before birth and challenge the brutality of abortion.

We need to begin to challenge the “guys” in society who use and then abandon the women they impregnate, to be “men”, and we need to show women who do not know what a real man is that real men actually protect women, not use and abandon them.

During the last few years our opponents have raised the argument that women need abortion access to be equal to men in society and as one colleague said recently. “If it is true that women must have abortion access to be equal in Canada then we are in a very poor state as a country.” How very sad, that as country the most prevalent help provided by governments to pregnant women who may be in crisis – is the freedom and then the payment to have their pre-born child killed!

How are we to ever reverse this deadly direction? One way would be for the pro-life movement to stop chasing anything that might appear to provide a hollow victory, because some Canadians agree with it and some politicians are prepared to support it. We need to chase the Truth, and have it reflected in all spheres of life. We must demand that women who are pregnant and in crisis receive real options to assist them to bring their child to birth and keep their jobs, remain in school or professional training and can raise all their children. We need to focus much more on who is killed during an abortion (child) and who is very often harmed (mother) in many ways by abortion. We should return to the adage of “mothers and children first”. Abortion only makes victims of them both – one dead and one wounded – it has to stop.